Observe how and when your teacher closes his or her lessons and/or activities. How does he or she end each class period? Is there a set routine? If so, describe it. Pay special attention to when you teacher begins to end the class. Does he or she return to the purpose or main idea of the lesson? Does he or she "set up" the homework or the next day's activity? Is the teacher still teaching when the bell rings or are students already poised to leave? Is there some "dead time" at the end of the class period? If so, how much? How do students react to your teacher's closing strategies? Remember that these questions are a guide and that you don't have to answer each one. Be sure you reflect on your observations and describe how you will try to end your classes. What supports for these ideas might you include in your lesson plans?
Observations:
-This week in my classes i observed a typical lecture style class. The reason for noting this is most weeks something like a lab or activity have been occurring. However, this week was straight in class explanation followed by in-class work and an introduction into the following day's lesson. Class began as normal for both the hands-on physics class and the physics 1 class. During the classes my CT began to introduce the students to kinematics. His demonstration included a review of free-fall and how all objects fall at the same rate (in a vacuum). With the hands-on physics class my CT gave the students the equation for free-fall solved for time. It was the job of the students to work in groups/pairs to measure their reaction time based on dropping a ruler and catching it with their fingers. At the end of the class my CT asked the students what their reaction time was for catching the ruler. As expected they were nearly all around the same time.
-Then my teacher broke out a 100-yard measuring tape. He asked me to hold the end of it as he pulled away to the other side of the classroom. Be told the students that when driving 70mph on the highway, this is how far someones car moves BEFORE they even hit the brakes (About the the width of the classroom). He further extrapolated how far they go if they're on their cellphone. And further if they have been drinking.
-In the physics 1 class the students did not do the reaction time problem. Instead, they used small whiteboard in the front of the room and drew three graphs on the whiteboards. My CT had a basketball in his hands and threw the basketball up in the air and then caught it. He told the students to draw a x vs. t, v vs. t, and a vs. t graph for the situation. My CT and I walked around the room helping the kids if they needed it (most did). He then wrote a story on the board about a car decelerating and accelerating and had them repeat the same drawing cycle. At the end of class my CT got a map of the world from the back room and told the kids a story about why we speak English. At first I was unsure as to why he was telling said story to the students but he tied in the idea of the English warships developing the first long-range cannon that could change the angle of their shot to win in battle.
Reflections:
-In reflection to the what occurred at the end of class i found that the first class i observed was more effective in leaving the kids thinking about what they learned than the latter. As stated before, the first class of students left under the notion that driver safety is extremely important. The students were all seniors and therefore most likely to be drivers or soon-to-be drivers. I thought my CT did an extremely good job of tying in the physics to the real-life scenario of reaction time with your brake pedal. He also surveyed the kids if they had ever tailgated in their young driving experience. Most kids jokingly said "yes", however, by the end of class the tone in the room was rather serious. This class ended with my CT speaking and i feel that it was more effective than if he ended class before the bell rang because the students would not leave the classroom in the same sense of intrinsic thought my CT had put them in. No one in the class was upset; i just felt they were more stunned by the fact that one can easily calculate things that puritan to everyday life.
-In the second class my CT ended class approximately 10 minutes early. However, he only meant to end it 5 minutes early. This time escalated the conversation in the classroom and most of the kids were completely out of "physics-land" by the 6th minute of freedom. Also, in this class there were approximately 25-30 students. However, i was most impressed by the low volume of the class as a whole even around the time when the bell rang. I feel that i would most likely have to alter my end of class procedure depending on the class topic, such as what happened in my observation this day. However, i do think that anything over 5 minutes of free-time at the end of class is WAY too much and will only lead to problems. And yes, in retrospect my CT mentioned that he thought there was only 5 minutes left in class.
Class Topic: Kinematics
Grade: 11/12
Observed by: David Kenahan
Observe how and when your teacher closes his or her lessons and/or activities. How does he or she end each class period? Is there a set routine? If so, describe it. Pay special attention to when you teacher begins to end the class. Does he or she return to the purpose or main idea of the lesson? Does he or she "set up" the homework or the next day's activity? Is the teacher still teaching when the bell rings or are students already poised to leave? Is there some "dead time" at the end of the class period? If so, how much? How do students react to your teacher's closing strategies? Remember that these questions are a guide and that you don't have to answer each one. Be sure you reflect on your observations and describe how you will try to end your classes. What supports for these ideas might you include in your lesson plans?
Observations:
-This week in my classes i observed a typical lecture style class. The reason for noting this is most weeks something like a lab or activity have been occurring. However, this week was straight in class explanation followed by in-class work and an introduction into the following day's lesson. Class began as normal for both the hands-on physics class and the physics 1 class. During the classes my CT began to introduce the students to kinematics. His demonstration included a review of free-fall and how all objects fall at the same rate (in a vacuum). With the hands-on physics class my CT gave the students the equation for free-fall solved for time. It was the job of the students to work in groups/pairs to measure their reaction time based on dropping a ruler and catching it with their fingers. At the end of the class my CT asked the students what their reaction time was for catching the ruler. As expected they were nearly all around the same time.-Then my teacher broke out a 100-yard measuring tape. He asked me to hold the end of it as he pulled away to the other side of the classroom. Be told the students that when driving 70mph on the highway, this is how far someones car moves BEFORE they even hit the brakes (About the the width of the classroom). He further extrapolated how far they go if they're on their cellphone. And further if they have been drinking.
-In the physics 1 class the students did not do the reaction time problem. Instead, they used small whiteboard in the front of the room and drew three graphs on the whiteboards. My CT had a basketball in his hands and threw the basketball up in the air and then caught it. He told the students to draw a x vs. t, v vs. t, and a vs. t graph for the situation. My CT and I walked around the room helping the kids if they needed it (most did). He then wrote a story on the board about a car decelerating and accelerating and had them repeat the same drawing cycle. At the end of class my CT got a map of the world from the back room and told the kids a story about why we speak English. At first I was unsure as to why he was telling said story to the students but he tied in the idea of the English warships developing the first long-range cannon that could change the angle of their shot to win in battle.
Reflections:
-In reflection to the what occurred at the end of class i found that the first class i observed was more effective in leaving the kids thinking about what they learned than the latter. As stated before, the first class of students left under the notion that driver safety is extremely important. The students were all seniors and therefore most likely to be drivers or soon-to-be drivers. I thought my CT did an extremely good job of tying in the physics to the real-life scenario of reaction time with your brake pedal. He also surveyed the kids if they had ever tailgated in their young driving experience. Most kids jokingly said "yes", however, by the end of class the tone in the room was rather serious. This class ended with my CT speaking and i feel that it was more effective than if he ended class before the bell rang because the students would not leave the classroom in the same sense of intrinsic thought my CT had put them in. No one in the class was upset; i just felt they were more stunned by the fact that one can easily calculate things that puritan to everyday life.-In the second class my CT ended class approximately 10 minutes early. However, he only meant to end it 5 minutes early. This time escalated the conversation in the classroom and most of the kids were completely out of "physics-land" by the 6th minute of freedom. Also, in this class there were approximately 25-30 students. However, i was most impressed by the low volume of the class as a whole even around the time when the bell rang. I feel that i would most likely have to alter my end of class procedure depending on the class topic, such as what happened in my observation this day. However, i do think that anything over 5 minutes of free-time at the end of class is WAY too much and will only lead to problems. And yes, in retrospect my CT mentioned that he thought there was only 5 minutes left in class.
Class Topic: Kinematics
Grade: 11/12
Observed by: David Kenahan